David Gorbe

Reading Music: Music and Reading and
Music Reading

David Gorbe

CEP 842: Instructional Application Project

Spring 2010

Introduction (What I
do)

For the past
14 years I have been a band teacher. I
have probably taught over a thousand students to read music and still I feel
that there are some I am not reaching. I
decided on this profession during my junior year of HS after a fellow student
approached me for help with a piece she was having trouble with. In hindsight, I think she may just have been
hitting on me, but what she said had a profound impact. She was a sophomore and didn’t know the names
of the notes. She mostly just played by
ear or looked at what others were playing.
I didn’t believe her. It seemed
impossible to me that a student could get along for four or five years this
way, but it was true. She knew a little,
but not enough to actually look at something she has never seen before and play
it. I decided that was unacceptable, and
I would do what I could to keep others from musical illiteracy. I was young.

Instruction
in music education at Michigan State University didn’t give me much to go on in
my undergraduate years when it comes to teaching music reading to young
students. It is assumed that you present
the information the way that you learned it, and they will learn it as
well. I didn’t really think much about
it, I just assumed it would work for them the way it worked for me. But I have found that some students simply do
not understand the complex symbols placed before them. They are confusing dots and lines on a page
and many of them still will learn by ear and imitating others.

I took a
graduate course after a few years of teaching with Dr. Edwin Gordon, who
started the “Gordon Institute for Music Learning (GIML)” which approached
learning music the same way we learn language.
Much of his approach is based in brain research, so it seemed quite
logical in its presentation. Yet its
biggest flaw is that it doesn’t really focus on reading at all, it pretty much
stops there. Gordon himself said that they
have been taught how to “think music” correctly, the reading falls into place. I haven’t found this to be the case, probably
because I also don’t agree with his ideas on testing students first for their
musical aptitude, and only teaching them (although this might not be his aim,
it is the way the tests his company produces are used). When asked how early a student should begin
musical instruction, his answer is “When the mother is born.” What about students without this cultural
equity?

Part of the
difficulty lies in the way that today’s band classes are designed. In a beginning class at Waverly Community
Schools where I have taught for the past 12 years, we will start about 120
students, divided into two classes that meet twice a week for about 40 minutes
each time. These two classes are then
divided by two teachers according to instrument classification. For simplicity, we divide by woodwinds
(flutes and clarinets only to start) and brass and percussion (trumpets,
trombones, and bells). I usually teach
the brass and percussion, meaning that my class uses three different forms of
the musical language. Trumpets play in
treble clef in the key of B-flat, meaning that they will have different names
for all of the notes that we discuss in class. Trombones play in bass clef, meaning all of
their lines and spaces will be different from the bells and trumpets. Bells play in treble clef in the key of C,
meaning they use the same clef as trumpets, but use different note names. Trombones share the same note names as bells,
but use a different clef. Yet somehow
these three versions of the music language need to be taught in the same class
that only meets twice a week, just before lunch when students are only thinking
about pizza and recess.

Our materials
are limited as well. Students are
required to buy their own instruments, which can be expensive. In today’s economy and with our changing
district make-up, we are consistently getting families that cannot afford to
buy or are declined when they try to rent an instrument, leaving it to us to
provide one for that student. Students
also need a book for when we introduce written music after the first three
months. Some of the students have a hard
time affording one, and when give them one, often have trouble staying
organized. We find that many of the
students that we provide instruments and books for often do not take very good
care of them, and holding the families financially accountable is incredibly
difficult.

These students are not tested for
musical aptitude, they are simply given the opportunity to join band if they
want to regardless of their background. This
is done in hopes that it helps both the individual student, since many studies
have been done that support the idea that music education helps students in
other educational areas, and it helps the program grow in membership, ensuring
that it will still be there to help other students in the future.

Why study music?

There are
many studies that show being in performing music classes are helpful in other
areas. For example, “Neuharth (2000)
examined the effects active band participation had on academic achievement in
middle school grades. Results show significant differences in reading
achievement that favored band students.”(Huber, 2009) There are even studies that show music and
language skills are related in a way that even helps those with dyslexia (Music
Perception, 08). I myself have
noticed through my years of teaching the high numbers of students in our band
classes that are in the National Honors Society and a good portion of the top
ten graduating seniors in our district.
Many books support the idea, including How the Gifted Brain Learns by David A. Sousa.

Because of
this, I hope to make as many students as possible successful in learning to
read music. I know that “reading is not
the goal (Socol, 2010)” but only a tool to help more information, or in this
case pieces of music, to be accessed, but I notice that more of those students
who struggle with reading music tend to give up on playing their
instrument. It would be nice to see all
120 5th grade students make it all the way to 12th grade
together, but the fact is only about 30 or less usually graduate together. I believe that if more can read successfully,
then more will stay with it.

Plan of Action

I have
focused much more on music reading this year than in the past. I believe that much of it has to do with this
class, although some of it comes from having a student teacher. I like having student teachers because it
makes me evaluate how I teach more than when I am by myself. I have tried to slow down more, and spend
more time on repetition and checking for understanding in all of the
students. The Response-to-Intervention
approach my district has adopted this year has made me reconsider the way I do
homework and testing. Yet still I notice
some students that would still struggle with the concepts. It may be less than in the past, but we do
still want “no child left behind” in concept at least, although I usually
phrase in a more action-movie way (“You don’t leave a man behind!”) when I talk
to the class.

I plan to
use (steal) ideas from Response-to-Intervention, Differentiated Instruction,
and Universal Design in my curriculum design for next year to try to improve
this. Motivation to learn the material
will also be considered. Although many
of them already are there learning to play their instruments because they want
to be, there are still some students pushed by their parents into being a part
of band class. Extrinsic motivation has previously
been used for these students in the form of grades or chairs (later in Middle
School) to learn the material, though I am inclined to try the “Possible Selves”
idea (kucrl.org, 2005) to have students make their own plan for what they want
to learn and why.

For
Response-to-Intervention, the main focus will be using a test to identify those
who are having a hard time identifying written notes by name as well as how to
play them on their instrument and keeping track of their progress. The goal by the end of 5th grade
will be to know 7 notes on their instrument and on the page, and rhythms
containing whole, half, quarter, eighth, and dotted notes and rests. By tracking their progress more carefully and
identifying students who need help I can then group students with a “reading
buddy” like they do in Differentiated Instruction.

The “reading
buddy” idea from Differentiated Instruction (Tomlinson, 2000) is interesting to
me, since students usually share stands anyway.
I will give time in class where the two students will go through a short
piece of music and go through the note names together, quizzing each other on
how to play it on their instrument, and help each other prepare for playing the
piece. This will require some initial
instruction, but once it becomes a ritual, it should be effective. Small groups can also go into a practice room
to work on something to perform and even teach to the class, again pairing them
by ability levels that complement each other.
The personal agendas idea will also be included with the “Possible
selves” paper they will fill out and keep in their folders so they can track
their own progress.

Universal
design will mostly take the form of “Flexibility in use” (Shaw, Scott,
&McGuire, 2001). This is the most
difficult idea, since pencil and paper has been the standard for so long. I have been researching computer programs
that help with music reading, and have found a few promising sites. Offering these as an option instead of the
pencil and paper standard is very enticing, although difficult to
implement. Not all students have
internet access, and the ones I found so far are internet based. Students could use computers at school, but
again the size of the class makes that difficult to work out. I also found one that would even keep track
of each individual student’s progress, but only with a monthly subscription,
which may be cost prohibitive given the current state of our district’s
financial situation. I will continue to
look for more options over the next four months.

Many of the
ideas posed in these educational approaches are already innate in a band
class. A band is already a community of
learners that has a common goal in the form of performances. Many pieces of music are already “tiered”
with the more difficult parts separated in some instruments, like first and
second trumpet parts, etc. Parts can
even be simplified to promote inclusion.
The music is already both auditory and visual, and the fact that playing
an instrument is a physical activity helps many stay focused as well. Rehearsals are structured and consistent,
which helps those with ADHD (US Dept of Ed 2004).

Although
music reading was not something that we studied in this course, I hope that I
have been able to take some of the concepts and adapt them to another content
area. The benefits of being in a group
like a band class are many, and should be seen as essential. Many people think of music as one of the “nice
to haves” and not a core content area, but I think that if we want to compete
in today’s world, we need to look at what people have known about studying the
arts since the days of Plato.

Music is
a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the
imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. It is the essence of
order, and leads to all that is good, just and beautiful, of which it is the
invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form – Plato
(McClard, 2010)

Winner,
Ellen. (2008). The Relation Between Music and Phonological Processing in
Normal-Reading Children and Children with Dyslexia. Music
Perception,Vol. 25, No. 4, Pages 383–390, DOI 10.1525/mp.2008.25.4.383

Socol,
Ira. (2010, March 27). Reading is NOT the goal.
Message
posted to http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2010/03/reading-is-not-goal.html

The University of Kansas Center for
Research on Learning. (2005). Strategic Instruction Model Content Enhancement. Retrieved from:http://www.kucrl.org/images/presentations/CEoverview2005.pdf

The Gordon Institute for Music Learning (GIML)
is dedicated to advancing the research in music education pioneered by Edwin E.
Gordon. The purpose of the Gordon Institute for Music Learning is to advance
music understanding through audiation. We believe in the music potential of
each individual, and we support an interactive learning community with
opportunities for musical and professional development.

We encourage you to
learn more about GIML and become a member. Please read theJoin GIMLpage for more information and a membership
application.

About
the author

Ricci Adams first envisioned Musictheory.net
during his senior year of high school. Soon afterwards, he created his first
lesson: The Staff, Clefs, and Ledger Lines. The Interval Ear Trainer was
developed a few weeks later and the site officially launched on January 1,
2000. Since that date, he has authored over thirty new lessons and several new
trainers.

In May of 2004, Adams graduated magna cum
laude fromMillikin
Universitywith a
Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. He currently lives and works in
Cupertinoas a Software Engineer.
In his spare time, he works on new additions to his website as well as other
projects.